Back to the future
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No Comments [ Add Comment ]By Scott Schwebke
Standard-Examiner staff
sschwebke@standard.net
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strong>Could trolleys stage a comeback in Ogden?
OGDEN -- It's been more than 80 years since Tom Corbett plunked down his first nickel to catch a rickety ride aboard a streetcar headed downtown.
Once a mass transit mainstay, trolleys disappeared from Ogden's landscape in the mid-1930s, but haven't been erased from Corbett's memory.
As a kid, Corbett, now 90, would often board an electric trolley at 27th Street and then travel downtown to watch "picture shows" at theaters with exotic names like the Egyptian and Lyceum.
The streetcars weren't comfortable, but they were cheap to ride.
"They were little old rattle traps," Corbett recalled
with a chuckle. "You would put the nickel in a little slot."
The days of the nickel ride are over, but trolleys reintroduced in cities like Kenosha, Wis., Little Rock, Ark., and Portland, Ore., are attracting a new legion of fans.
Trolleys offer a cool way to travel and can play a major role in economic revitalization, said Kay Dannen, director of community relations for the Portland Streetcar Co.
For example, since 1997 about $2.3 billion in commercial and residential development has occurred within two blocks of Portland's streetcar line, Dannen said. "It's amazing what has happened," she said.
Would it work here?
But could a streetcar system find similar success in Ogden, particularly along a congested corridor extending from the intermodal hub at Wall Avenue and 24th Street to McKay-Dee Hospital?
Greg Scott, who is responsible for transit planning for the Wasatch Front Regional Council, believes it's possible, based on the results of a 2005 study.
The study commissioned by the Wasatch Front Regional Council, Utah Transit Authority, Ogden and Weber State University found streetcars to be the most desirable mode of mass transit along the corridor.
Bus rapid transit finished second, while a gondola being pushed by Ogden Mayor Matthew Godfrey came in third, largely due to its slow travel speed, high operating costs and untested use for mass transportation.
Godfrey has said the sale of city-owned Mount Ogden Golf Course and about 60 acres of adjoining municipal property to would-be developer Chris Peterson could fund the gondola system.
Streetcars came out on top in the study due to a number of factors, including anticipated ridership of 5,300 passengers a day, compared with 4,200 passengers for the gondola and 4,000 for bus rapid transit.
Costs in dispute
However, a drawback for streetcars is the $100 million price tag that would be equally shared by the federal government and the Utah Transit Authority, Scott said. It could also take at least a decade to obtain federal funding, he said.
Godfrey disputed some of the transit study's findings and believes Ogden would be best served by a 1-mile streetcar route looping downtown instead of the proposed 4-mile route that would take up a traffic lane on Harrison Boulevard, increasing traffic congestion.
"You don't typically do streetcars in long linear corridors," he said.
Godfrey also said it may be hard to convince Weber County voters who live outside of Ogden and wouldn't be served by streetcars that they should approve a tax increase to fund the system.
Mike Vause, a member of Smart Growth Ogden, said the 2005 transit study "hit the nail head," adding streetcars would be beneficial to the city because it would offer multiple passenger stops along the downtown to McKay-Dee Hospital corridor.
"Small neighborhood businesses may grow along the stops," he said. "It also ties in with the historic nature of Ogden."
A proposed route calls for a streetcar line to run east from the Wall Avenue intermodal hub along 23rd Street to Washington Boulevard, south to 26th Street, east to Harrison Boulevard and south again to Mc-Kay-Dee Hospital, Scott said.
The trolley could make stops at 23rd Street and Washington Boulevard, 26th Street and Monroe Boulevard, Weber State University and McKay-Dee Hospital, Scott said.
He predicted that even before completion of the streetcar system, the city could allow large-scale development along the route.
Streetcars elsewhere
That seems to have happened in several cities where streetcars have been reintroduced.
About $150 million in new commercial and residential development was completed near trolley tracks in Little Rock, Ark., prior to the 2004 opening of the 2.5 mile River Rail Streetcar Line, said Virginia Fry, the line's manager.
Even more development is expected when an additional 3.5 miles of track open next year, taking passengers to the William J. Clinton Presidential Library and Museum and within a block of a new $32 million minor league baseball park.
For 50 cents, passengers can ride any of the five vintage streetcars that travel along a figure-eight shaped track that loops around Little Rock's trendy River Market district, home to a host of restaurants, night clubs and taverns.
Since its opening, about 300,000 riders have used the $19.7 million trolley system owned by the Central Arkansas Transit Authority, Fry said.
The system costs about $400,000 a year to operate and is funded by passenger receipts, grants and municipal contributions.
Streetcars have also helped put Kenosha, Wis., on the road to economic prosperity, said Ron Iwen, director of operations for the city-owned trolley line. He credited the $3.5 million for the 2-mile trolley system, which became operational in 2000, with revitalizing Kenosha's once "dreary" blue-collar downtown into a vibrant business and entertainment district.
Portland, Ore., boasts what may be one of the nation's most progressive and heavily used trolley systems, attracting about 9,000 riders daily along the six-mile route. The system cost $79 million to build.
Portland's streetcar line extended in October about a half-mile to connect to a new 78-passenger aerial tram that will serve Oregon Health Sciences University.
Godfrey said he hasn't been following progress of the streetcar and tram connection in Portland very closely, but noted a trolley and gondola system in Ogden could work well together.
"They could coexist," he said. "A streetcar that goes to a gondola that goes to a resort makes all the sense in the world."
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